Читать книгу Modern Romance November 2019 Books 5-8 - Dani Collins - Страница 12

‘SMILE, CALYPSO. IT’S the happiest day of your life!’

‘Here, let me put some more blusher on your cheeks…you’re so pale. Perhaps a bit more shadow for your beautiful eyes…’

Beneath the endless layers of white tulle that some faceless stranger had deemed the perfect wedding gown material and gone to town with my fingers bunched into fists. When the tight clenches didn’t help, I bit the tip of my tongue and fought the urge to scream.

But I was past hysteria. That unfortunate state had occurred two weeks prior, when my father had informed me just how he’d mapped out the rest of my life. How it was my turn to help restore our family’s honour.

Or else.

The cold shivers racing up and down my spine had become familiar in the last month, after a few days spent in denial that my father would truly carry out his intentions.

I’d quickly accepted that he would.

Years of bitterness and humiliation and failure to emulate his ruthless father’s dubious acclaim had pushed him over the edge once and for all.

The soft bristles of the blusher brush passed feverishly over my cheeks. The make-up artist determined to transform me into an eager, blushing, starry-eyed bride.

But I was far from eager and a million miles away from starry-eyed.

The only thing they’d got right in this miserable spectacle was the virginal white.

If I’d had a choice that too would have been a lie. At twenty-four I knew, even in my sheltered existence, that being a virgin was a rare phenomenon. At least now I realised why my father had been hell-bent on thwarting my every encounter with the opposite sex. Why he’d ruthlessly vetted my friendships, curtailed my freedom.

I’d believed my choices had been so abruptly limited since the moment my mother fell from grace. Since she returned home the broken prodigal wife and handed my father all the weapons he needed to transform himself from moderately intolerable to fearsome tyrant. I thought I’d been swept along by the merciless broom of wronged party justice, but he’d had a completely different purpose for me.

A purpose which had brought me to this moment.

My wedding day.

The next shudder coagulated in my chin, making it wobble like jelly before I could wrestle my composure back under control.

Luckily the trio of women who’d descended on our house twenty-four hours ago were clucking about pre-wedding nerves, then clucking some more about how understandable my fraught emotions were, considering who my prospective husband was.

Axios Xenakis.

A man I’d never met.

Sure, like everyone in Greece I knew who he was. A wildly successful airline magnate worth billions and head of the influential Xenakis family. A family whose ill fortune, unlike mine, had been reversed due the daring innovation of its young CEO.

It was rumoured that Axios Xenakis was the kind of individual whose projections could cause stock markets to rise or fall. The various articles I’d read about him had boggled my mind—the idea that any one person could wield such power and authority was bewildering. To top it off, Axios Xenakis was drop-dead gorgeous, if a little fierce-looking.

Everything about the man was way too visceral and invasive. Just a simple glance at his image online had evoked the notion that he could see into my soul, glean my deepest desires and use them against me. It was probably why he was often seen in the company of sophisticated heiresses and equally influential A-listers.

Which begged the question—why the Petras family? More specifically, why me?

What did a man who dated socialites and heiresses on a regular basis, as was thoroughly documented in the media, have to gain by shackling himself to me?

I knew it had something to do with the supreme smugness my father had been exhibiting in the last several weeks but he had refused to disclose. Somehow, behind the sneers and bitterness whenever the Xenakis name came up over the years, my father had been scheming. And that scheming had included me.

In all my daydreams about attaining my freedom, marriage hadn’t featured anywhere. I wanted the freedom to dictate who I socialised with, what I ate, the pleasure to paint my watercolours without fear of recrimination, without judgement… The freedom to live life on my terms.

The hope of one day achieving those things had stopped me from succumbing to abject misery.

But not like this!

I forced my gaze to the mirror and promptly looked away again. My eyes were desolate pools, my cheeks artificially pink with excess rouge. My lips were turned down, reflecting my despair since learning that I was promised to a stranger. One who’d demanded a wedding within twenty-eight days.

My flat refusal had merely garnered a cold shrug from my father, before he had gone for the jugular—my one weakness.

My mother.

As if summoned by my inner turmoil, the electric whine of a wheelchair disturbed the excited chatter of the stylists. The moment they realised the mother of the bride had entered the bedroom, their attention shifted to her.

Taking advantage of the reprieve, I surreptitiously rubbed at my cheeks with a tissue, removing a layer of blusher. The icy peach lipstick disappeared with the second swipe across my lips, leaving me even paler than before but thankfully looking less of a lost, wide-eyed freak. Quickly hanging the thick lace veil over my face to hide the alteration, I stood and turned, watching as the women fawned over my mother.

Iona Petras had been stunningly beautiful once upon a time. Growing up, I was in awe of her statuesque beauty, her vivacity and sheer joy for life. Her laughter had lit up my day, her intelligence and love of the arts fuelling my own appreciation for music and painting.

Now, greying and confined, she was still a beautiful woman. But along with her broken body had come a broken spirit no amount of pretending or smiling, or even gaining the elevated position as mother of the bride, soon to marry a man most deemed a demigod, could disguise.

She withstood the stylists’ ministrations without complaint, her half-hearted smile only slipping when her eyes met mine. Within them I saw ravaging misery and the sort of unending despair that came with the life sentence she’d imposed on herself by returning when she should have fled.

But, just as I’d had to remain here because of her, I knew my mother had returned home because of me. And somewhere along the line Iona Petras had accepted her fate.

‘Leave us, please,’ she said to the stylists, her voice surprisingly steely.

The women withdrew. She wheeled herself closer, her face pinched with worry. For the longest minute she stared at me.

‘Are you all right?’

I tensed, momentarily panicked that she’d learned what I’d hidden from her for the last few weeks. As much as I’d tried to ignore the ever-growing pain in my abdomen, I couldn’t any more. Not only had it become a constant dull ache, it had become a reminder that even health-wise my life wasn’t my own. That I might well be succumbing to the very real ailment that had taken my grandmother—

‘Callie? Are you ready?’

Realising she was talking about the wedding ceremony, I felt the urge to succumb to hysteria pummel me once again. As did the fierce need to be selfish just this once…to simply flee and let the chips fall where they may.

‘Is anyone ever ready to marry a man they’ve never met?’ I asked. ‘Please tell me you’ve found out why he’s demanding I do this?’ I pleaded.

Eyes a shade darker than my own lapis-lazuli-coloured ones turned mournful as she shook her head. ‘No. Your father still refuses to tell me. My guess is that it has something to do with your grandfather and old man Xenakis.’ Before I could ask what she meant, she continued, ‘Anyway, Yiannis will be looking for me, so I need to be quick.’

She reached inside the stylish designer jacket that matched her lavender gown and produced a thick cream envelope, her fingers shaking as she stared at it.

‘What’s that?’ I asked when she made no move to speak.

Within her gaze came a spark of determination I hadn’t seen in years. My heart leapt into my throat as she caught my hand in hers and squeezed it tight.

‘My sweet Callie, I know I’ve brought misery to your life with my actions—’

‘No, Mama, you haven’t. I promise,’ I countered firmly.

She stared at me. ‘I’m not sure whether to be proud or to admonish you for being such a good liar. But I know what I’ve done. My selfishness has locked you in this prison with me when you should be free to pursue what young girls your age ought to be doing.’ Her fingers tightened on mine. ‘I want you to make me a promise,’ she pleaded, her voice husky with unshed tears.

I nodded because…what else could I do? ‘Anything you want, Mama.’

She held out the envelope. ‘Take this. Hide it in the safest place you can.’

I took it, frowning at the old-fashioned cursive lettering spelling out my name. ‘What’s this?’

‘It’s from your grandmother.’

‘Yiayia Helena?’ A tide of sorrow momentarily washed over me, my heart still missing the grandmother I’d lost a year ago.

My mother nodded. ‘She said I’d know when you needed it. And even if I’m wrong…’

She paused, a faraway look in her eyes hinting that she was indulging in all those might-have-beens that sparked my own desperate imagination. When she refocused, her gaze moved dully over my wedding dress.

‘Even if this…alliance turns out to be tolerable, it’ll help to know you were loved by your grandmother. That should you need her she’ll be there for you the way I wasn’t.’

I held on tighter to her hand. ‘I know you love me, Mama.’

She shook her head, tears brimming her eyes. ‘Not the way a mother should love her child, without selfish intentions that end up harming her. I took the wrong turn with you. I left you alone with your father when I should have taken you with me. Maybe if I had—’ She stopped, took a deep breath and dabbed at her tears before braving my worried stare again. ‘All I ask is that you find a way to forgive me one day.’

‘Mama—’ I stopped when she gave a wrenching sob.

Her gaze dropped to the envelope in my hand. ‘Hang on to that, Callie. And don’t hesitate to use it when you need it. Promise me,’ she insisted fervently.’

‘I… I promise.’

She sniffed, nodded, then abruptly turned the wheelchair and manoeuvred herself out of my bedroom.

Before I could process our conversation I was again surrounded by mindless chatter, unable to breathe or think. The only solid thing in my world became the envelope I clutched tightly in my hand. And when I found that within the endless folds of tulle the designer had fashioned a pocket, I nearly cried with relief as I slipped the envelope into it.

Even without knowing its contents, just knowing it came from my grandmother—the woman who’d helped me stand up to my father’s wrath more times than I could count, who’d loved and reassured me on a daily basis during my mother’s year-long absence when I was fifteen years old—kept me from crumbling as my father arrived and with a brisk nod offered his stiff arm, ordered me to straighten my spine…and escorted me to my fate.

The chapel was filled to the brim, according to the excited chatter of the household staff, and as my father led me out to a flower-bedecked horse-drawn carriage I got the first indication of what was to come.

Over the last three weeks I’d watched with a sense of surrealism as construction crews and landscapers descended on our little corner of the world to transform the church and surrounding area from a place of rundown dilapidation into its former whitewashed charming glory.

The usually quiet streets of Nicrete, a sleepy village in the south of the island of Skyros, the place generations of the Petras family had called home, buzzed with fashionably dressed strangers—all guests of Axios Xenakis. With the main means of getting on and off the island being by boat, the harbour had become a place of interest in the last few days.

Every hotel and guest house on the island was booked solid. Expensive speedboats and a handful of super-yachts had appeared on the horizon overnight, and now bobbed in the Aegean beneath resplendent sunshine.

Of course the man I was to marry chose to do things differently.

My carriage was halfway between home and the church when the loud, mechanical whine of powerful rotors churned the air. Children shouted in excitement and raced towards the hilltop as three sleek-looking helicopters flew overhead to settle on the newly manicured lawns of the park usually used as recreational grounds for families. Today the whole park had been cordoned off—evidently to receive these helicopters.

Beneath the veil I allowed myself a distasteful moue. But the barrier wasn’t enough to hide my father’s smug smile as he watched the helicopters. Or his nod of satisfaction as several distinguished-looking men and designer-clad women alighted from the craft.

I averted my face, hoping the ache in my heart and the pain in my belly wouldn’t manifest itself in the hysteria I’d been trying to suppress for what seemed like for ever. But I couldn’t prevent the words from tumbling from my lips.

‘It’s not too late, Papa. Whatever this is… Perhaps if you told me why, we can find a way—’

‘I have already found a way, child.’

‘Don’t call me a child—I’m twenty-four years old!’

That pulse of rebellion, which I’d never quite been able to curb, eagerly fanned by Yiayia when she was alive, slipped its leash. She’d never got on well with my father, and in a way standing up to him now, despite the potential fallout for my mother, felt like honouring her memory.

His eyes narrowed. ‘If you wanted to help then you should’ve taken that business degree at university, instead of the useless arts degree you’re saddled with.’

‘I told you—I’m not interested in a corporate career.’

Nor was I interested in being constantly reminded that I wasn’t the son he’d yearned for. The one he’d hoped would help him save Petras Industries, the family company which now teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

‘Ne—and just like your mother you let me down. Once again it has fallen to me to find a way. And I have. So now you will smile and do your duty by this family. You will say your vows and marry Xenakis.’

I bit my lip at this reminder of yet another bone of contention between us. I’d fought hard for the right to leave the island to pursue my arts degree, only returning because of my mother. The small art gallery I worked at part-time on Nicrete was a way of keeping my sanity, even as I mourned my wasted degree.

‘After that, what then?’

He shrugged. ‘After that you will belong to him. But remember that regardless of the new name you’re taking on you’re still a Petras. If you do anything to bring the family into disrepute you will bear the consequences.’

My heart lurched, my fists balling in pain and frustration—because I knew exactly what my father meant.

The consequences being my father’s ability to manipulate my mother’s guilt and ensure maximum suffering. His constant threats to toss her out with only the clothes on her back, to abandon her to her fate the way she’d briefly abandoned her family. But while my mother had deserted her child and marriage in the name of a doomed love, my father was operating from a place of pure revenge. To him, his wife had humiliated and betrayed him, and he was determined to repay her by keeping her prisoner. Ensuring that at every waking moment she was reminded of her fall from grace and his power over her.

The reason that I’d been roped in as a means to that end was my love for my mother.

Eight years ago, when he’d returned home with my absentee mother after the doctors in Athens had called and informed him that she’d been in a crash, and that the man she’d run away with was dead, he’d laid out new family rules. My mother would stay married to him. She would become a dutiful wife and mother, doing everything in her power to not bring another speck of disgrace to the family. In return he would ensure her medical needs were met, and that she would be given the finest treatment to adjust to her new wheelchair-bound life.

For my part, I would act the devoted daughter…or my mother would suffer.

The horses whinnying as they came to a stop at the steps leading to the church doors dragged me to the present, pushing my heartache aside and replacing it with apprehension.

The last of the guests were entering while organ music piped portentously in the air. In less than an hour I would be married to a man I’d never exchanged a single word with. A man who had somehow fallen in league with my father for reasons I still didn’t know.

I glanced at my father, desperate to ask why. His stony profile warned me not to push my luck. Like my heartache, I smothered my rebellion.

My father stepped out of the carriage and held out his hand. Mine shook, and again I was glad for the veil’s cover to hide my tear-prickled eyes.

A small part of me was grateful that my father didn’t seem in a hurry to march me down the aisle because he was basking in the limelight that momentarily banished the shadow of scandal and humiliation he’d lived under for the past eight years. For once people weren’t talking about his wife’s infidelity. Or the fact that the woman who’d deserted him had returned in a wheelchair. Or that he’d taken her back just so he could keep her firmly under his thumb in retribution.

Today he was simply the man who’d seemingly bagged one of the most eligible bachelors in the world for his daughter—not the once illustrious but now downtrodden businessman who’d lost the Petras fortune his father had left him.

The doors to the church yawned open, ready to receive their unwilling sacrifice. My footsteps faltered and my father sent me a sharp look. Unable to meet his eyes without setting off the spark of mutiny attempting to rekindle itself inside me, I kept my gaze straight.

I needed to do this for my mother.

I spotted her in the front row, her head held high despite her fate, and it lent me the strength to put one foot in front of the other. The slight weight of my grandmother’s envelope in my pocket helped me ignore the rabid curiosity and speculative whispers of three hundred strangers.

Unfortunately there was only one place left to look. At the towering figure of the man waiting in perfect stillness facing the altar.

He didn’t twitch nor fidget. Didn’t display any outward signs of being a nervous groom.

His broad back and wide shoulders seemed to go on for ever, and his proud head and unyielding stance announced his power and authority. He didn’t speak to the equally tall, commanding figure next to him, as most grooms did with their best man. In fact both men stood as if to military attention, their stance unwavering.

My gaze flicked away from Axios Xenakis, my breath stalling in my throat the closer I approached. Even without seeing his face I sensed a formidable aura—one that forced me again to wonder why he was doing this. What did he have to gain with this alliance?

He could have any woman he wanted. So why me?

And why had several butterflies suddenly taken flight within my belly?

Wild instinct urged me to fan my rebellion to life. Fight or flight. Pick one and deal with the consequences later.

But even as the thoughts formed they were discarded.

I had no choice. None whatsoever.

But maybe this man I was marrying would be a little more malleable than my father. Maybe—

He turned. And the feeble little hope died a horrible death.

Eyes the colour of polished gunmetal bored into me as if they were with fierce, merciless hooks. They probed beneath the veil with such force that for a moment I imagined I was naked—that he could see my every weakness and flaw, see to the heart of my deepest desire for freedom.

His lips were pressed into a formidable line, his whole demeanour austere. Axios Xenakis could have been in a boardroom, preparing to strike a deal to make himself another billion euros, not poised before an altar, about to commit himself to a wife he’d never met.

I catalogued his breathtaking features. Wondered if that rugged boxer’s jaw ever relaxed—whether the cut-glass sharpness of his cheekbones ever softened in a smile. Did he maintain constant control of those sleek eyebrows so they were permanently brooding? Did his nose ever wrinkle in laughter?

Why was I interested?

I was nothing but part of a transaction to him—one he didn’t seem entirely thrilled about, judging by his icy regard. So it didn’t matter that the olive vibrancy of his skin drew from me more than a fleeting look, or that he was without a doubt the most strikingly handsome man I’d ever seen.

He was a world removed from the boys I’d sneakily dated at university, before my father had found out and ruthlessly thwarted my chances with them before anything resembling a relationship could form.

Axios Xenakis belonged in a stratosphere of his own. One I was apprehensive about inhabiting.

My footsteps stalled and I heard my father’s sharp intake of breath. It was swiftly followed by the tight grip of his hand in warning.

Don’t disgrace the family.

Defiance sparked again.

But then I saw my mother’s head turn. The ubiquitous misery filmed her eyes, but alongside it was a look so fierce it might have been a reflection from my grandmother’s eyes.

It was a look that infused me with courage.

It’s up to you, it said. Do this…or don’t.

My heart thundered. The need to turn around and simply walk away was a wild cyclone churning through me.

At the altar, Axios’s eyes never shifted from me, his stance unchanging in the face of my clear reluctance. It was as if he knew what I’d decide and was simply waiting me out.

And, since I was playing in a game whose rules no one had bothered to apprise me of, there was only one move I could make.

I would play this round, then fight my corner later.

With that firm promise echoing inside me, I stepped up to the altar.

I saw a fleeting disappointment in his eyes before he masked his features. He was disappointed? Did that mean he didn’t want this?

Wild hope flared within me even as bewilderment mounted. If he didn’t want this then there might be room to negotiate. Room to get what I wanted out of this.

Realising I was staring, and that my father had been dispatched and I was now the sole focus of Axios Xenakis’ eyes, I hurriedly averted my gaze. But not before acknowledging that up close he was even more electrifying. Perhaps it was the severity of his grey suit. Or the fact that the hand he held out to me screamed a silent command.

The last strains of the hymn trailed away, leaving behind a charged silence. With each second it weighed heavier, pressing down on me.

His hand extended another inch, and heavy expectation thickened the air.

With a deep breath, inevitably I slipped my hand into his—and joined the stranger who was to be my husband.

Almost immediately he released me. But the sensation of his touch lingered, and a sizzling chain reaction I was unprepared for travelled up my arm, flaring wide.

It was enough momentarily to drown out the intonation of the priest’s voice as he began the ceremony.

I rallied long enough to murmur the words I’d reluctantly memorised and, when the time came, to pick up the larger of the two platinum wedding bands.

With fingers that still trembled I faced Axios. The impact of his eyes, his towering frame, the much too handsome face momentarily erased the words from my brain.

In silence he held out his left hand, his laser eyes boring into me as he simply…waited.

‘I take thee…’

‘For better or worse…’

‘With my body…’

‘Love, honour, cherish…’

‘Till death…’

With each spoken vow my heart squeezed tighter, the mechanical delivery I’d expected to give morphing into a whispered outpouring wrapped in consternation.

The second I was done he reached for the other ring without taking his eyes off me, again holding out his hand for mine.

And then Axios Xenakis spoke for the first time.

‘I, Axios Xenakis, take thee, Calypso Athena Petras…’

The rest of his words were lost to me as the deep, hypnotic cadence of his voice struck like Zeus’s thunderbolt into a place I didn’t even know existed until that moment.

His voice was…sexy. Alluring. Magnetic.

It seemed impossible that a voice could be all those things, and yet I felt every one.

The cold brush of platinum on my skin brought me back to myself just in time to hear the priest announce us as man and wife. To say that my new husband could now kiss me.

I started to turn away. Because this was a far cry from a normal wedding ceremony. And we were far removed from two people in love.

Large, firm hands cupped my shoulders, shocking me into stillness. Unable to stop a cascade of light shivers, I held my breath as he lifted the heavy veil and draped it behind me with unhurried movements. I watched his gaze take in my bound hair, the small headband made of tiny diamonds and pearls that had belonged to Yiayia Helena and the similar necklace adorning my throat.

Had he been anyone else I might have entertained the notion that Axios Xenakis was reluctant to look into the face of the woman he’d just committed himself to. Because when his piercing grey eyes finally settled on me, I caught a momentary confusion, then his eyes widened and his jaw slackened for a split second before he reasserted supreme control.

Any fleeting pleasure I’d felt at gaining some unknown upper hand fled as heat suffused my face at his intense, almost shocked scrutiny.

Admitting that I should have left the make-up artist’s work alone didn’t help my urge to squirm under his candid regard. But I forced myself to hold his gaze, ignore the consternation in his eyes and the humiliating thud of my heartbeat.

Just when I thought he intended to drag the torture out for ever he slid one finger beneath my chin to nudge my head upward. Caught in the mysterious hypnosis of his gaze, I watched his head descend, so close that heat from his skin singed mine.

I braced myself, my stomach churning with emotions I couldn’t name.

I’d been kissed before. Those university colleagues I’d toyed with before my father’s bitter reach had scared them away. None of them had elicited this level of shivery anticipation.

His kiss arrived, subtle as a butterfly’s wing and powerful as a sledgehammer. Sensation rocked through me like an earthquake, dizzying and terrifying, leaving me with nothing to do but to brace my hands on his chest, anchor myself to reality somehow.

But all that did was compound my situation. Because the solid wall of his chest was like sculpted warm steel, inviting the kind of exploration that had no place in this time and space.

Pull away.

Before I could, he gave a sharp intake of breath. In the next moment I was free of him and he was turning away.

Back to earth with a shaky thud, I fought angry bewilderment even as I strove for composure before our three-hundred-strong audience.

The feeling lingered all through our walk down the aisle, through our stiff poses for pictures and then the ride back up the hill to the crumbling mansion overlooking the harbour—the only home I’d ever known.

The horse and carriage had been swapped for a sleek limousine with darkened windows and a partition that ensured privacy. Beside me Axios maintained a stony silence, one I wasn’t inclined to break despite the dark, enigmatic looks he slanted me every now and then.

When it all became too much, I snatched in a breath and faced him. ‘Is there something on your mind?’

One eyebrow quirked. ‘As conversations go, that’s not quite what I expected as our first. But then I’m making many surprising discoveries.’

He wasn’t the only one! ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

He didn’t reply immediately. Then, ‘You’re not what I was led to expect.’

I couldn’t help my lips twisting. ‘You are aware of how absurd that sounds, aren’t you?’

He stiffened, and I got the notion that once again something about me had surprised him. ‘No. Enlighten me,’ he replied dryly.

‘Not what you were led to expect?’ The slight screech in my voice warned me that hysteria might be winning but I couldn’t stop. ‘Let me guess—you thought you were getting some biddable wallflower who would tremble and trip over herself to please you?’

You were trembling minutes ago, when he kissed you.

I ignored the voice and met his gaze.

He’d turned into a pillar of stone. ‘Considering the ink isn’t dry on our marriage certificate, perhaps we should strive not to have our first disagreement. Unless you wish to break some sort of record?’ he rasped, gunmetal eyes boring into me.

Apart from our marriage, I still didn’t know the precise details of the deal between my father and my new husband and it momentarily stalled my response. But the fire burning inside me wouldn’t be doused.

‘I get the feeling you’re just as…invested in this thing as my father is, so it bears repeating that you’re not getting a simpering lackey who will jump through hoops to amuse you.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Your father? Not you?’

Short of revealing my ignorance on the matter, I had to prevaricate. ‘I’m a Petras—same as he.’

Something that looked very much like contempt flickered through his eyes. ‘Consider me forewarned,’ he replied cryptically.

Before I could query what he meant the limo was pulling up to the double doors of my family home. Liveried footmen hurried to throw our doors open.

Inside the rarely used but hastily refurbished ballroom guests drank champagne and feasted on canapés and my father gave a painfully false speech. I only managed to sit through it by reaching into my pocket and clutching the envelope within.

The moment the speeches were done Axios was swarmed upon by fawning acquaintances, eager to engage the great man in conversation. I told myself that my primary emotion was relief as the stylists, also roped into acting as my attendants, rushed to straighten my veil and train, twitching and tweaking until they were satisfied that I’d been restored to their vision of bridal beauty.

But just when I thought I’d have a moment’s reprieve Axios’s gaze zeroed in on me, his eyes falling to the barely touched food on the plate that lay next to my untouched glass of champagne.

One brow rose. ‘Not in the mood for celebrating? Or are you trying to make some sort of point by not eating?’

I couldn’t eat—not when the inkling was deepening that Axios Xenakis was far from a willing participant in this devilish deal. And if that was the case, what had I let myself in for?

I pushed the anxious thought away and let my gaze fall on his equally full plate. ‘You should talk.’

He lifted his champagne and took a healthy gulp. ‘Unlike you, this occasion isn’t one I feel inclined to celebrate.’

My breath caught, but before I could ask him to elaborate, he continued.

‘And in the interest of clarity let me warn you that neither you nor your father have any cards left to play. Should you feel inclined to make more demands.’

Christos, what exactly had my father done?

But even as the question burned fire boiled in my blood. ‘Are you threatening my family? Because if you are, please know that I will fight you with everything I’ve got.’

His lips twisted at my fierce tone. ‘What a fiery temper you have. I wonder what other surprises you’re hiding beneath those unfortunate layers of… What is that material?’

As much as I hated my wedding dress, his remark sparked irritation. ‘It’s called tulle. And you should know. You paid for it, after all.’

The barest hint of a sardonic smile lifted his sensual lips. ‘Writing a cheque for it doesn’t mean I pay attention to every single detail of a woman’s wardrobe. I have better things to do than concern myself with the name of the fabric that comprises a wedding gown.’

‘But this is your wedding too,’ I taunted, knowing my mockery would aggravate.

Something about this towering hunk of a man, who’d made it clear that this was the last place he wanted to be, riled me on a visceral level, firing up a need to dig beneath his formidable exterior.

‘Isn’t it supposed to be one of the momentous occasions of your life?’

Every trace of humour disappeared. Piercing grey eyes pinned me in place, and the tension vibrating from him was so thick I could almost touch it.

‘Momentous occasions are highly anticipated and satisfactorily celebrated. You’d have to be delusional or deliberately blind to imagine I’m in such a state, Calypso Petras.’

The way he said my name, with drawling, mocking intonation, fired my blood. Along with other sensations I couldn’t quite name.

‘It’s Calypso Xenakis now—or have you already forgotten?’ I fired back, taking secret pleasure in seeing the irritated flare of his nostrils.

‘I have not forgotten,’ he answered with taut iciness.

‘If this is such an ordeal for you, then why all this?’ I waved my hand at the obscenely lavish banquet displayed along one long wall, the champagne tower brimming with expensive golden bubbles, the caviar-laden trays being circulated, and the designer-clad guests, shamelessly indulging their appetites.

‘Because your father insisted,’ he replied, his voice colder than an arctic vortex. ‘As you well know.’

I opened my mouth to tell him for once and for all that none of this made sense to me because no one had bothered to consult me about my own wedding.

The sight of my mother’s face, staring at me from one table away, pain and misery etched beneath her smile, dried the words in my throat.

For whatever reason fate had tangled the Xenakises and the Petrases in an acrimonious weave and my mother and I were caught in the middle. I could no more extricate myself than I could turn my back on her.

A tiny, tortured sound whistled through the air and I realised it came from my own throat—a manifestation of that hysteria that just wouldn’t die down. I stood abruptly, knowing I had to get away before I did something regrettable.

Like climb on top of the lavishly decorated lonely high table, set apart from everyone else to showcase the newly married couple in all their glory, and scream at the top of my lungs.

That just wouldn’t do. Because while I might have acquired a new surname, it was dawning on me that until I learned the true nature of what I was embroiled in I would be wise to keep a firm hold of my feelings.

And an even firmer hold of my wits.